“Is this what it feels like, finding out that I’ve got the guts to say anything?”

I am panicking. Alex freaking Gaskarth wants to get to know me. What are the odds of this happening? I dig through my suit cases and try to find something warm and cute to wear. Then the little voice in my head stops me, why am I doing this? “You remember your vow” .
I throw on my best pair of sweatpants and a sweater, not even bothering to brush my teeth again or touch up my smudged makeup. And I’m off to meet Alex.
Whenever I arrive, Alex is already there. He’s slouched over, and seems focused. I figure he’s on his phone, and when I finally make my way to him, his focus is on the fire in front of him; I wonder how he started the fire.
“Hey.” I manage to get out, and he looks up at me, startled. He’s dressed in a pair of grey joggers, a black hoodie, and a Ravens beanie. I look over him carefully, and realize how attractive he actually is. I mentally kick myself and tell my brain to shut up, this isn’t going to happen.
“Hey.” He smiled at me, and my brain is back at it again; my stomach doing somersaults. “How was your first day?”
I think back to the day, my very first time playing Warped Tour: the crowd was small but their voices loud and adrenaline high. I started off the day nervous, and panicking. Our band was nothing special, so who would come out to see us? There was few but they made up for it, and their passion made me realize this is exactly where I wanted to be forever. “It was amazing.”
“Awesome. Wanna sit and talk about it?”
Out of the blue, I started to feel angry; angry at myself for not being able to let people in, and angry for all men being the same. I knew this relationship couldn’t progress, and I could not allow myself to be a door mat for anyone ever again. I didn’t want to hurt Alex’s feelings, but my brain was screaming stop it now before it’s too late.
“Alex, we can’t do this.”
He stood up to face me, the confused look on his face tore my heart in half but I couldn’t stop myself now. My brain was telling me I could say anything, this was my life, my heart; I had to protect it.
“What are you talking about?” he asked, taking a step towards me.
“This isn’t happening.” I made a motion towards us, then backing away. “I don’t do relationships, I don’t do these things, and I’m definitely not going to be your summer...sex buddy.”
“Caroline, I never-“
“I know you’re kind, I know what they think, I don’t do this anymore.”
“What the hell are you talking about? And you know my kind? You don’t fucking know me.”
I could tell I had let him down, I could see he was hurt and pissed off that I would assume something about him. It’s true, I didn’t know him. But I know men, I know all the relationships I had ever been in crashed and burned, and me being left in the aftermath. I was manipulated, forced into love, abused, played with, cheated on, left for the next best thing too many damn times. It would never happen again, and if vowing to stay away from any male that ever showed interest in me then so be it. The pity for Alex left me, replaced by burning rage that he thought he could trap me too.
“I think it’s best we don’t see each other. I’m sorry this didn’t go how you thought.”
I hurried to turn away before he could say anything else. I quickened my pace and the cold Maryland air bit at my nose, and burned my eyes. My heart was pounding, and for a moment, I started to feel sad. My eyes started watering, and not because of the wind, but because I was deeply sad. Years ago, someone like Alex wanting to know me would have made me want to dance my heart out, and scream it from the rooftops. Why couldn’t life be like the romance novels? Why couldn’t someone love me?
Alex didn’t follow me, and that’s when I knew I made the right decision.

Notes

I realize this chapter is really short, but every time there's a new song lyric the chapters switch!
I'm slowly adding on to this story (I've got a lot more written), but I'm kind of waiting to see if anyone is interested in it before i post the whole thing. So, let me know what y'all think!